


Juno Steel and the Green Knight

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [45]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Aliases, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Fair Folk Peter Nureyev, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gawain and the Green Knight AU, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Knight Juno Steel, Magic, Other, Prophecy, but mostly for comedy, theres a solid amount of well this might as well happen humor, very minor because im BAD at writing it, you dont need to have read the original for this. i didnt lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-20 18:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30009096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: About thirty seconds ago, Juno had been half asleep, letting the king’s words flow in one ear and out the other while he zoned out in the direction of the nearest candle. Knights’ meetings always went the same way anyway. The ones who arrested the most folk heroes and dulled their swords on the most dragons got cushy jobs, while Juno would be assigned to stand guard in the creepy forest on the edge of the kingdom again. He didn’t doubt it would take a miracle to get his attention.With the door recently thrown open and Juno’s head still aching from where it banged against the round table in shock, he no longer wished for an end to his boredom. At the end of the day, it seemed a far kinder fate than the one promised by the large, glowing axe slung over the shoulder of the interloper.Rec fill for @lol988876 on tumblr!!
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 32
Kudos: 76





	1. The Interloper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheaterGeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheaterGeek/gifts).



> OH MAN! this one. this one was fun to write lemme tell ya! anyway for any interested in the original myth, id suggest watching the osp video on the arthurian knights. solid video, lots of fun, and barely recognizable as this au lmao. good times! once again you need no knowledge of the story, just some light knowledge of Fair Folk mechanics to get along in this, i.e. names are powerful and giving yours to someone (different than telling it to someone) gives them a certain power over you, "turnabout" games are popular (tit for tat challenges and whatnot), promises have a certain weight (in some stories Fair Folk can't lie at all and therefore have to be deceitful with their wording), and you shouldnt eat their food
> 
> Content warnings for temporary beheading, implied gore, nausea mention

About thirty seconds ago, Juno had been half asleep, letting the king’s words flow in one ear and out the other while he zoned out in the direction of the nearest candle. Knights’ meetings always went the same way anyway. The ones who arrested the most folk heroes and dulled their swords on the most dragons got cushy jobs, while Juno would be assigned to stand guard in the creepy forest on the edge of the kingdom again. He didn’t doubt it would take a miracle to get his attention.

With the door recently thrown open and Juno’s head still aching from where it banged against the round table in shock, he no longer wished for an end to his boredom. At the end of the day, it seemed a far kinder fate than the one promised by the large, glowing axe slung over the shoulder of the interloper.

Juno didn’t know if his taste in men was going to get him killed one day or if he was just tired, but he could have sworn the guy was attractive. 

Even if his smile was a little too sharp, his teeth looked less like those of a predator than the bared grin of the kind of folk hero that bards sang about. Despite the green haze that swirled up his impressive height like a coiling snake, his lines were clearly sharp, from the construction of his face to the long, clever fingers that curled around the handle of his axe. He wore armor of a smooth, shimmering black that Juno might have been able to appreciate if it hadn’t been dead silent as he strolled farther and farther into the room.

“Now, pardon me, gentleman,” the man or monster or something in between began, flashing a razor sharp smile that glowed a strange green light in the newly shadowed conference hall, all the candles having sputtered out in fear of the long, tall shadow he cast through the eerily dark room. “I do hope I wasn’t interrupting anything important.”

Juno was too busy waking up to go for his sword, but thankfully, the king seemed to have him covered.

“What the hell do you want?”

“There’s no need for that tone,” the interloper chuckled. “It’s just that I’ve found myself in the possession of a new axe as of late, and I would hate to take it for myself without any particular challenge to anyone. I’m very fond of challenges, you know.”

“Could you have—I dunno, waited until after the meeting?” Juno huffed.

“Well, you see, I wanted you all in one place at one time,” the interloper continued. “I couldn’t merely accost one of you on the street with the knowledge that I might be interrupting something that mattered.”

The king slammed his fist on the table loud enough for the half melted candles to jump.

“Who do you think you are, barging in—”

“You may refer to me as Rex Glass,” the interloper cut him off. “I’ll be keeping my name to myself, if you don’t mind.”

Juno swallowed, Glass having confirmed his every suspicion. He’d spent enough time guarding the crossroads at the edge of the kingdom to know exactly what kind of being kept their name so close to their chest. They also happened to be the same ones to stand a little too tall and smile a little too sharply and if they really felt like scaring you, cast the kind of hazy green aura that trailed behind Rex’s hands as he reached up for the handle of his axe.

Juno barely had time to jump before Glass broke into a hearty chuckle, shaking his head at the half dozen drawn swords from around the table, each reflecting a parody of the moonlight back at a glowing gentleman whose light had a strange insistence on never reflecting at all. He shook his head, then waved a hand until all the swords slunk back to their scabbards.

“I don’t mean to kill any of you,” he began. “I mean only to offer my axe in challenge. If one of you is able to behead me with it, I don’t see why you shouldn’t keep it. However, if you don’t succeed in killing me, I will take your head in one year’s time. Until then, you will see or hear nothing of me.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Juno snorted. “I mean, if you like the axe that much, couldn’t you just—y’know, keep it and also not get your head cut off?”

“I’m partial to games, my dear knight. Besides, I’m rather partial to my head as well. It would take quite the warrior to coax me to part with it,” Glass laughed in a way that almost sounded like the gentle running of a brook if Juno strained his ears hard enough. “Now, would any of you like to try?”

The king huffed.

“I’m gonna guess you’re not going anywhere until somebody does.”

“Certainly not.”

“Steel?”

Juno was already on his feet, eyes rolling and hand already outstretched for the axe. He didn’t have to guess that he would be the potential collateral sponge for whatever trap he was evidently walking into. His job five days a week wasn’t much different, given that most knights would rather get beheaded by that wicked blade than set foot in the kind of forests that let off the same unearthly glow as Glass.

He didn’t want to think about the way Glass’s million dollar smile flickered for just a moment, something almost pitying blooming in his eye when he pressed the axe into his hands with all the tenderness of a person seeing their partner off to war with a newly sharpened blade.

“It’s not personal,” Juno grumbled, just so he could pretend his heart hadn’t leapt when Rex’s fingers, rendered blurry at the edges by the soft light, nearly brushed his own.

“Of course not, my dear knight,” Glass beamed, folding his arms behind his back. “Go ahead now. If I am going to be parting with my head, I would wish to do so sooner rather than later.”

“This is a trap, isn’t it?”

“My dear, there’s no need to ask what you already know.”

Juno huffed.

At the end of the day, it was a really nice axe.

He closed his eyes for just a moment, letting himself grow used to the weight of the weapon in his hands as he found the perfect spot to grip it where the topheavy weight of the blade wouldn’t overbalance his hold on the handle. Somewhere on the other side of his eyelids, Rex whistled impatiently, the tune sounding like a tone deaf parody of the kind of ethereal music Juno had been told to expect from individuals such as Glass. If Juno’s life wasn’t on the line, he would have found it almost endearing.

Once he got sick of the jaundiced green light managing to seep through his eyelids without his permission, he took a deep breath, hoisted the axe over his shoulder, opened his eyes, and swung.

If anything, Juno expected the weapon not to make a dent on Glass’s neck, or perhaps to turn to a snake in his hands. The most likely course of action seemed to be that he would swing the blade and through some type of magic or another, Rex would avoid all consequences of injury, before returning the strike in the kind of reciprocal games such beings liked to play.

He hadn’t expected Glass’s head to hit the floor.

“Shit,” he mused.

“Shit indeed, my dear knight,” Juno would have heard Rex say if he hadn’t been busy yelping in surprise when the body that was supposed to crumple bent over, scooped the head up, and righted it back on his shoulders.

“What the—”

“Well, I am a man of my word,” Rex shrugged, kicking the axe in Juno’s direction after it fell from the hand Juno was now using to keep his dinner down. “You’re free to keep the axe.”

“Your—” Juno broke off to gag, “your head’s on crooked.”

“I’m well aware,” Glass grimaced.

“Bit to the left.”

“I can see that.”

“I hate this job,” Juno mumbled beneath his hand.

“Well, I ought to give you the good news, then,” Glass continued with a triumphant grin once his head was affixed properly. “You’ll be rid of it in a year’s time.”

“Turnabout?” Juno grimaced.

“Indeed, my dear knight,” Peter beamed.

“Why does this always happen to me?”

“It’s not so terrible, is it?” Rex mused. “You have a year left to enjoy both your head and your axe.”

Juno didn’t have any kind of comeback for that. Thankfully, Glass addressed the remainder of the slack jawed room, giving Juno a friendly moment or two in which to process his death.

“Gentlemen,” he began, pausing for a nod to Juno, “and Lady, this has been a most wonderful evening. I bid you all well, and I look forward to making company with one of your number in a year’s time. For now, I must away. Juno, my dear knight, I do look forward to seeing you again. It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Hey, wait—” Juno started. “You can take your stupid axe, I don’t—”

Glass didn’t wait for Juno to finish his sentence before vanishing, nothing but a vague green mist, an axe, and a dead silent room left behind in his absence.

“Steel?” The king called, his voice echoing strangely in a room that seemed to have not entirely left the spell under which the interloper cast it.

“Yeah?”

“You’re fired.”

A deadline had a hell of a way of making the days pass, even when most of them were better than he’d known in quite some time. He was pretty sure he had the king to thank for that instead of Rex Glass and his stupid head cutting competition, but a year of being a knight for hire, squirming out from under his boss’s thumb, and not having to wake up before the asscrack of dawn every morning wasn’t entirely bad in his book.

Glass was right about one thing, at least. He definitely appreciated having a head more than he ever thought to in the past.

It was that appreciation for the attachment of his skull to the rest of his body that saw him dragging himself through the forest mere weeks from his expiration date, even as rain pounded from overhead and threatened to rust the good armor he had barely managed to hide beneath his cloak.

At the end of the day, his survival plan was a little more hopeless than he wanted it to be. Logically, if Glass needed to use a door to get into the meeting room, he might also need to use a door to get into whatever stronghold Juno kept himself in until the day he was meant to get beheaded. Maybe it was a flimsy plan, especially with the forest far closer behind him than Juno wanted to think about, but if he could just get away from a place where he was easy to find and hide for a little while, he might be able to make it.

If he got lucky, Glass would just get bored and find somebody else’s head to take. Juno had managed to outrun enough games of turnabout in the past that he wasn’t entirely resigned to his fate. However, those games of turnabout were usually with unassuming crones or so-called allies who tricked him over their phrasing, rather than a glowing, axe-wielding creature with fangs for teeth and devilishly sharp eyes. 

Juno’s plan to flee to the next city over seemed far less flimsy in concept. However, nature seemed to have other ideas when it started the kind of snarling, hissing storm that coughed him up upon stone steps at the foot of a heavy wooden door. 

He couldn’t tell if it was the door of a castle or a manor or an over-glorified restaurant, but frankly, he couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d spent a few too many of the last hours coughing up a lungful of water and feeling his armor rusting around him to care what shape the roof over his head took.

He banged a fist on the door, unsure if the groan he heard was the wood or the shuddering trees or a watery, frustrated cry pulled from his lips.

“Open up, goddammit!”

The door refused to do so. Juno banged his fist on the wood again, searching blindly for the knocker with his other hand. When his fingers, cold and trembling and wrinkled with rainwater, closed around it, he pulled it back and slammed another few times.

By the time the door fell open, Juno was surprised that the biting wind hadn’t been what knocked him over, but rather, his misplaced weight when he prepared to throw his shoulder into the lock.

Thankfully, whoever was on the other side was kind enough to catch him before he could completely tumble over.

“Careful, my dear knight,” he said, voice barely a murmur over the sound of the wind howling like a pack of unearthly hunting dogs out for human blood.

Juno tried and failed to find his footing as the stranger’s arms closed around his shoulders, guiding him away from a door that seemed to have shut of its own accord.

“Sorry about—”

“I am nothing if not hospitable,” the gentleman chuckled before Juno’s reparations could even begin to fall from his lips. “You’re in quite the terrible shape.”

“I noticed.”

Juno wasn’t sure if the darkness was blotchy or if his vision had yet to stop swimming, but either way, every lit candle around what seemed to be some sort of study blurred, as if trapped in an unseen fog. He didn’t doubt part of it had something to do with his spinning head, for he hadn’t even realized his host had rid of his armor and laid him out before a crackling fire until he was face to face with the defiantly sputtering flames.

By the time he managed to raise his head, the host was wrapping a blanket around him, as if that could do anything to fend off the bone-deep ache of cold that curled up in his chest among the organs there. Something warm did bloom in response, however, though the kindness of the stranger, rather than the blanket, sowed its seed.

“Hey, Mister—” Juno started, his mind flailing uselessly for a name until the host broke him off with a chuckle.

“Peter Ransom,” he finished.

“Before you get too comfortable with having me around, I need you to know a giant green guy wants me dead or something,” Juno tried to explain with some level of coherency, though it seemed the part of him that kept his speech unslurred and his words convincing had been washed away by the storm.

“Oh dear,” Ransom murmured. “Did you hit your head in the forest? You poor thing.”

“Head’s just fine, thanks,” Juno grumbled, though he had no complaints when Ransom did his best to provide it some comfort anyway. His lap made a nice pillow, while his clever fingers coaxed Juno ever nearer to sleep.

“I’m very glad to hear you’ve been taking care of it,” Ransom chuckled.

“What?”

“Nothing, my dear knight.”


	2. Refuge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL YEAH FLUFF TIME LADS
> 
> Content warnings for food, mentions of pain, minor injury/illness (whatever you call getting beaten up by a storm)

As a rule, Juno didn’t like to be coddled. The healer who patched him up after taking an arrow to the eye practically had to bribe him to keep him in bed after the procedure, and even the apathetic doctor at the castle, lovingly referred to as Sir Aid Kit the First, managed to show a bit of concern for Juno’s willingness to drag his body kicking and screaming onto the battlefield.

The storm the night before hadn’t been that bad, though Juno doubted he’d be feeling much like himself for a few days. He probably inhaled half the waterlogged wind and he was almost certain that his joints wouldn’t stop hissing and spitting every time he tried to move for a little while. That didn’t mean he was necessarily down for the count. If he really wanted to, he could probably even pack up the soaked remains of his travel bags and carry on with his journey.

The problem was that he didn’t really want to.

Peter Ransom wasn’t a knight or a lord or a prince, though he had both the manners and manor of any of them. While Juno fell asleep at the fireside, he awoke tucked into a plush bed, gently tugged from his sleep by a warm compress upon his forehead and the familiar feeling of those fingers running gentle circles into his scalp.

“Oh, thank heavens,” Ransom breathed by the time Juno blinked his eyes open. “I was terribly worried about you, Juno.”

Juno blinked.

“How the hell do you know my name?”

“I was laying your effects out to dry the other day and caught sight of it on a letter that explained your situation far better than you were able to. My sincerest apologies for prying, I just wanted to ensure you didn’t accidentally give me your name in giving it to me, if you catch my meaning,” Ransom explained. “I didn’t know how your head would be doing after that ordeal.”

Juno furrowed his brow.

“What do you mean the other day?”

Ransom swallowed.

“This is your third day under my roof.”

“Holy shit.”

“Indeed,” he grimaced, the hand in Juno’s hair stalling for just a moment. “I’m sure it’s not as terrible as it sounds. You arrived late in the evening of the first day and you’ve woken far before noon on the third. That’s hardly over a day or so.”

“I mean—” Juno shook his head. “Look, if you know what the reason I’m running in the first place is, you know I don’t really have the luxury of losing days.”

Ransom’s smile dulled slightly, seeming to drag down the merry chirping of birds by a few notes as well. The brilliant morning light, cast in merry shades of blue and white and gold and green, grew fainter for just a moment in the second it took for Ransom’s hand to fall from Juno’s scalp, as if the world mourned those few parted inches more than Juno ever could. After no more than a second’s pause, he shook his head, fixed his friendly smile, and returned his hand to Juno’s scalp. As if on cue, spring resumed its blooming from Juno’s bedside window.

“Juno, I’m afraid I must confess something to you,” Ransom began slowly, though his sharp smile refused to falter.

“Can’t be half as bad as having a green asshole after your neck,” Juno snorted.

“I have made a point of being especially cautious with your name for a reason,” he continued. “I’m sure you can put the pieces together. The fact of the matter is that this green knight you described is one of my own kind, and I don’t doubt I may be better protection against him than most.”

Juno grimaced.

“And what am I gonna have to owe you for it?”

“Juno, I would never,” Ransom all but gasped.

Juno huffed.

“Quit the act. I already owe some asshole my head. I’m not ready to lend out any other body parts anytime soon.”

“You can’t owe me anything if you don’t survive the next few weeks, if you want to be truly cynical about it,” Ransom chuckled. “I have told you my meaning sincerely. I mean to shelter you for as long as you need, and any repayments will be in the form of helping me keep you alive.”

Juno rolled his eyes.

“C’mon, it can’t be that hard.”

“I don’t know what humans eat, Juno. If you don’t want breakfast to be an artfully plated guess, you’re going to have to assist me,” Ransom huffed.

“Fine,” Juno groaned, though any further words were cut off by Ransom pushing him back onto his pillows before he could even begin to get up.

“You’re not going anywhere until I’m certain you’re a normal human temperature,” Ransom instructed, “and if I might ask, what exactly is a normal human temperature?”

“Not cold.”

“Ah. Very well then.”

Ransom paused a moment to remove the warm compress from Juno’s forehead, dropping it back into a bowl beside his chair. When he finished drying his fingers on a rag, he leaned forward and pressed it to Juno’s cheek with the back of his hand first, as if fearful of a burn.

The touch was cold enough to shock Juno initially, though eventually, as if warmed by his own skin, he adjusted to the sensation. Ransom’s hand lingered far too long, trying palm and fingers and knuckles pressed into Juno’s face and cheeks and forehead until he seemed happy with his result. Juno had to physically force his arm from snaking out from under the covers and guiding Ransom’s gentle touch back to his cheek once more.

“Well, I can say for certain that you’re not cold.”

“Great. Can I get up now?”

“Not until you’ve eaten, my dear knight,” Ransom chuckled. “I don’t want you going anywhere until I know you’re at your full strength. If the green knight makes his appearance early, you ought to be either prepared or preparing, and you do neither by doing yourself any more harm.”

“I’m not just gonna sit here while you accidentally poison me.”

“Then I suppose I ought to make you breakfast in bed,” Ransom mused.

“What the hell is—”

Juno’s question was broken off by a very sudden and very unexpected answer when Ransom grinned, setting his fingertips on fire.

“I think with a large enough flatstone this shouldn’t be too much of a difficulty,” Ransom shrugged.

Juno was all but convinced Ransom was trying to sound humble when he confessed his lack of knowledge towards cooking as a whole. However, after wasting twenty minutes trying to explain the concept of eggs and where to find them, Juno started to get a hunch that Ransom was being less polite and more brutally honest. By the time Ransom made his third return from the forest with eggs, rather than his first two baskets of rocks, Juno all but decided that he would be doing his own cooking for as long as it took to hide away from the knight.

To make matters worse, Ransom just had to go about his life in a painfully endearing manner.

As much as Juno disliked the idea of having such a large window so near to him while being actively hunted by a giant glowing asshole, he had to admit the view wasn’t half bad. Even if Ransom could likely summon all the eggs he wanted and make them do a little kickline or whatever the hell his powers were supposed to do, he took his time with everything he placed into the basket on his arm, crouching down to bring rocks and eggs alike close to the lenses of his glasses and squinting until he decided to either tuck them away or discard them. 

It didn’t help the rebelliously warm sensation in Juno’s chest that he paused to pick up flowers as he went, tying the many stems together with a long piece of grass and holding them under his arm like the kind of haphazard suitors mocked in ballads.

Regretfully, the scene of Ransom trading eggs in nests for shiny rocks and other trinkets he found laying around the brook and sparsely treed meadow at the tower’s foot couldn’t last forever. On the bright side, that meant the stupid warm thing in his chest got to indulge itself for a minute when Ransom returned to his side, tucked a daisy behind his ear, and started to gleefully unload the basket on his arm onto Juno’s lap.

It didn’t take long for Ransom to set up his idea of breakfast in bed, consisting of a large flatstone hovering a few inches above Juno’s legs and kept perpetually warm by Ransom’s flaming hands as the eggs cracked merrily atop the warm rock.

As frustrating as it was to discover that Ransom was an endearing individual, watching his eyes grow steely in focus and one sharp tooth seizing his bottom lip in thought revealed another side to Juno’s host that he hadn’t expected to bother him.

Ransom was, unfortunately, incredibly attractive. 

As much as Juno wanted to keep his eye on the edge of the rock to make sure nothing splattered or got too close to the bedsheets, he could barely tear his vision away from the lines in Ransom’s hands and the way his clever fingers swirled thoughtfully to keep the flame alive. Juno didn’t know if there was any muscle or fiber or bone beneath his skin, or if he was just cast in the approximate shape of a human, but if he was a recreation, he was a damn good one. He did not merely exist. Rather, he carried some of the love of the artful hand that had woven him into being with his every movement, as if he were less a living thing than a masterpiece dedicated to what it meant to be alive.

Juno had heard enough parables of the vain wasting away while making eyes at their reflections in still lakes for a lifetime. He never thought he might consider someone else in the same way.

Ransom saved him from that fate when he flipped the eggs onto a plate he had miraculously found in a cabinet and pressed it into Juno’s hands with a smile so soft it threatened to make the already volatile organ at the center of Juno’s chest split in two.

“There you are,” he all but beamed.

“You know, I was always told that I shouldn’t ever eat food offered by someone like you,” Juno snorted. “Something about ending up trapped in some other realm forever.”

Ransom huffed, though not unkindly.

“You watched me make it.”

“Maybe you poisoned it while I was blinking.”

Ransom rolled his eyes, though his feigned annoyance didn’t last long. That million volt smile seemed a little too powerful to be held back by anything, even another form of affection. Juno eventually conceded into taking a bite of the food.

“How is it?”

Juno paused to swallow.

“I’ve had a lot worse.”

“Well, you can hardly fault a man if he’s never made an omelet before,” Ransom chuckled. “I intend to become much better, if you’re comfortable with my leaving your side for the next day or so. There aren’t exactly many grocers setting up shop in this corner of the woods.”

“Yeah, well, my expiration date isn’t for another three weeks or so,” Juno snorted mirthlessly. As much as he accustomed himself to fatalistic humor over the last year, he couldn’t help the sinking of his heart when Ransom’s smile withered upon his lips.

“Sorry—” Juno started.

Ransom broke him off to take him by the hand and squeeze.

“You’re in no danger as long as you’re here,” he assured Juno with the conviction of a general’s battle speech. “I won’t allow anything adverse to happen to you.”

“I dunno how much you can do to stop him.”

“Juno, look at me,” Ransom insisted.

Juno’s gaze rose from the bedsheets. In all his years as a knight, he’d considered himself a pretty resilient individual. However, he somehow nearly withered under that gaze, forceful and sweet and gentle nonetheless. If he squinted, something that might have been guilt tugged at Ransom’s jaw, though he tried his best to push the thought aside. At the end of the day, he wanted to believe in all of his reassurances as much as Ransom seemed to.

“You and I both know that beings of my ilk aren’t very adept liars,” he began slowly, “so I want to make an assurance that cannot possibly be construed any other way. Without loopholes or double meanings or any verbal trickery, I promise to keep you safe.”

Juno swallowed.

“How the hell are you going to do that?”

“Oh, magic, I’m assuming,” Ransom shrugged. “A door with an iron handle does wonders, especially when the majority of my nonhuman visitors don’t bring their own oven mitts.”

“You’re telling me that every time you open the door, you have to use an oven mitt?”

“I just told you I don’t lie, Juno,” Ransom chuckled, as soft and sweet as the sunlight streaming through the window.

“Whatever,” Juno snorted. “How long do you think the runs to town are gonna take?”

“About a day once every week or so,” Ransom considered. “I won’t be leaving you for long. As much as you can consider yourself safe, I wouldn’t want to be cavalier.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“I do have just one thing to ask of you, if you wouldn’t mind—“

Juno grimaced before Ransom could even finish his sentence.

“Turnabout?” He sighed. “I’m not trying to get my head cut off again.”

“Well, I suppose you might construe it that way, I just have a few packages coming in the mail,” Ransom returned. “I would hate for them to stay out on the doorstep for long, especially if you can handle the iron. I just ask that anything you get in a day you give to me. I’ll do the same, barring whatever personal items I take a fancy to at the market.”

“That wording feels really vague,” Juno groaned.

“I wouldn’t want to bind you to a hyperspecific agreement that prevents you from taking an unexpected letter or gift inside on a rainy day, Juno,” Ransom smiled. Juno wasn’t sure if he realized that they were still holding hands, but there was something soft in that smile that kept him from caring.

“Fine,” he huffed. “Whatever we get in a day, unless you’re shopping for yourself, we give to the other.”

“Wonderful,” Ransom beamed. “If you don’t mind a slight shift in subject, that did remind me of something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“Yeah?”

“What exactly did the knight say he would be doing in one year’s time again?”

“It’s pretty open and shut, Ransom,” Juno sighed. “I think he said that if I didn’t kill him with the axe, which I didn’t, he’d come for my head in a year.”

Ransom swallowed, his face contorting into something unreadable before he managed to school his expression once more.

“And you’re positive there’s no other meaning one could glean from that promise?”

“Unless you have any cabbages for me to start doling out, I don’t think so.”

Ransom nodded thoughtfully.

“Perhaps we ought to get some just in case,” he considered. “I’ll add that to my list.”

Juno shook his head.

“Whatever it takes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been so fun to write what a vibe anyhoo
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill steal your cabbages
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	3. The Traveler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeehaw! more fluff coming your way guys!!
> 
> Content warnings for food mention

Ransom, it turned out, was a far more amicable host than Juno ever expected. He was honest more often than not, for he used many words and deemed it best not to mince any of them. Frankly, it seemed Ransom was far too concerned with tricking their outside threat than he was Juno.

After losing an eye to some carefully chosen words, Juno was all too happy to have an earnest host. Firstly, it meant that he never had to guess much about Ransom, something that made the little tower feel a little less like shelter and a little more like home. Secondly, it meant that when Ransom did attempt to slide anything under his nose, Juno found himself rather adept at spotting it.

“Juno, dear,” Ransom called one morning, his voice warm and sweet and sunny as he laid a hand upon Juno’s shoulder.

Juno wasn’t sure how to feel about the pet names. On principle, he didn’t consider himself the kind of guy such endearments would apply to. However, something about the honeyed, yet casual way they fell from Ransom’s lips made his chest go warm and his head go fuzzy in a way he didn’t particularly want to mull over for longer than he had to.

Besides, he could worry about introspection once Ransom was done smiling down at him from over the guest bed, his grin as soft as birdsong and his hands twice as gentle.

“Hey,” Juno grumbled, rolling over.

“I’m going to leave for the market,” Ransom began, a little too slowly for his own good. “Do you—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever I get, I’ll give to you and whatever your end was,” Juno mumbled into his pillow, for it was a far easier thing to lay eyes upon than Peter Ransom. He didn’t have to think about the traitorous stirrings of the organ in his chest when he was looking at his bed.

“Of course,” Ransom chuckled. “Is there anything you’d like?”

“Human food.”

“Any human food in particular?”

“I’d say surprise me, but I don’t know how good of an idea that is,” Juno snorted, though his laugh blurred away into a yawn. He tried his best to pretend he was still wiping his eyes when Ransom’s gaze softened as if he were looking upon the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Perhaps something else,” Ransom pressed. “Anything you might wish for as a gift?”

“I dunno,” Juno huffed. “So long as you get some cabbages, just in case the green knight’s a pun guy.”

Ransom laughed at that, his voice so bright it nearly shattered Juno’s heart in two.

“You needn’t worry for a moment, Juno,” he assured him. “I’ve given you my word. No harm will come by his hand. I’ll see to that. As for my present issues, you don’t happen to have a favorite flower, do you?”

Juno furrowed his brow.

“I like roses, I guess,” he considered.

“Roses,” Ransom smiled. “Yes, I think I might be able to do something with that. I’ll be back this evening.”

“Don’t take too long. I’ll—” Juno broke off for a laugh, “wither away, mourning your absence like you’re gone at war.”

“Well, now you’re just making fun of me,” Ransom accused, though not without humor in his voice.

“Go get your human food,” Juno returned with a playful shove.

“How dare—”

“I’m trying to sleep in,” Juno laughed. “You can come flirt with me when we’re both awake.”

“Whatever you say, dear,” Ransom shook his head.

Juno hadn’t raised his head from the pillow, but from the sound of his voice, he didn’t doubt Ransom was smiling.

Despite all of Ransom’s reassurances, Juno couldn’t quite kill the part of him that decided to number the days he had left. That part would be doing a far better job if the rest of his brain hadn’t somehow lost count.

A year ago, he expected his final days to be spent running, if not to cram in everything he wanted one last chance to do, to make some kind of futile attempt at escape. The reality blossomed into something both far different and far better than he could have ever guessed.

Perhaps the tower was a small one, with kitchens and guest rooms and stairs crammed together as if magic held the place together, rather than stone and mortar. Juno was almost positive that was the case. Perhaps the tower was occupied by a slightly imposing creature with overly sharp teeth and vague promises and a little too much power for his own good. Perhaps Juno had to painstakingly teach Ransom how to cook human food to avoid Ransom touching iron and getting burned and Juno getting poisoned.

After enough mornings waking to sunlight and birdsong and the occasional jostling from Ransom when he needed to go out of town for a day, the guest bedroom felt less like a stopping point and more like a home. His clothes and those Ransom bought or made him occupied the closet, rather than a travel bag. Books he mentioned liking materialized on the nightstand. He even found himself seeking solace there on some days when the chain around his neck felt too heavy for its own good.

The rest of the tower had its merits as well, especially in that Peter Ransom often occupied it. Juno was all too happy to assist in whatever chores didn’t complete themselves, especially when it came to the specific subset of activities that kept a human household running. At the end of the day, it was a small price to pay for a roof over his head, the promise of protection, and the strange rush in his head every time Peter Ransom cast a smile his way.

Between it all, he could almost believe Ransom when he promised everything would be alright.

It was during one of these chores on Ransom’s market day that the stranger made his way into the clearing, clutching an overly large travel cloak to his chest. Juno didn’t see the need to put the laundry he was hanging aside just because a certain lost traveler had found his way to the wrong patch of the forest. However, once the traveler began to dance around the iron fence posts that Ransom used for protection, Juno felt his eye snaking further and further away from the clothesline.

The option of ignorance dissipated entirely when the stranger looked up from where he had formerly been watching his feet and fixed Juno with a smile so jovial he half wondered if it would’ve knocked a weaker man over.

“Greetings!” The stranger cried.

Juno narrowed his eyes.

“You gonna tell me who the hell you are before you greet me?”

The man merely laughed at that, bold and bright. Before Juno could say another word, he jumped the fence in a whirl of long limbs and fabric, then strolled his way over to Juno’s side with a sweeping bow.

“You, my dear, may call me Duke Rose,” he smiled, taking Juno’s hand in his own to bring it up to unfairly soft lips for a kiss.

“I was worried about that,” Juno huffed.

As much as he wanted to tear his hand away, something kept a half-joking smile on his face. Maybe it was the handsome cut of Duke Rose’s face. Maybe it was the softness of his lips or the tenderness of his hands. Maybe it was just that Juno recognized Peter Ransom when he saw him, regardless of which transformed face he hid behind.

Regardless, Juno would be a hell of an ungrateful guest if he didn’t at least humor this so-called Duke Rose, a handsome gentleman bearing the name of the flower he requested and the mannerisms of a suitor.

“Worried about what?” Ransom or Rose or whatever the hell he wanted to call himself chuckled. “I don’t see why a lady such as yourself should be worried about a thing in the world. Why, with a countenance such as yours—”

Juno cut Rose off before he could start making his heart do any more unnecessary acrobatics.

“You’re not human is what I mean.”

Rose swallowed.

“Ah.”

“What are you really doing here, Rose?” Juno huffed, though with his mind on the stories of such beings not taking too kindly to a lack of hospitality towards their transformed selves, he did his best to keep his tone from turning anything less than good-humored.

“Well, I was merely travelling through the forest on my way home from the market when I came across the loveliest lady I’ve ever been blessed enough to lay eyes on—and in such an idyllic place—I knew for certain I had to stop by, if not to profess my wide-eyed affections, to just make simple conversation,” Rose all but soliloquized.

Perhaps Ransom was a hell of an actor. Juno wouldn’t know, for even if Rose looked entirely different, his eyes still went soft in a way Juno didn’t think someone could replicate if they wanted to. His hands fiddled with his robe the way Ransom’s hands fiddled with the lapels of his poet’s shirts, and worst of all, he and Rose shared the same damned smile.

As such, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to laugh at him.

“That means a lot, Rose,” Juno snorted.

“I sense that there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Rose grimaced.

“Yeah, big tower like that? Not really a one guy kind of joint, if you catch my drift,” Juno returned. The flickering of a kicked puppy expression in Rose’s eyes made Juno’s smile all the harder to fight down. “I don’t know how well the homeowner would take it if I started courting any old guy off the street. Hope that’s not too much of a blow to your ego.”

Rose made like his namesake and wilted.

“Of course not,” he swallowed.

“I dunno if you’ve ever met this Peter Ransom guy, but between you and me, I think he wouldn’t be too happy to see me making eyes at somebody else,” Juno chuckled.

“If not eyes, might I leave you with this?” Duke continued, pressing a single long-stemmed rose into Juno’s hand before he could so much as blink.

“You’re really laying it on thick, huh?”

“And what makes you say that?”

Juno was a patient lady, but he could not be one forever. His smile slipped first, then his laugh, then his composure altogether. Somewhere behind the tears nearly clouding his eyes, Rose blinked away something that might have been abject terror, however sweet it looked on his face.

“Ransom, you’re such a goddamn idiot,” Juno all but wheezed.

Rose’s countenance vanished in an instant, leaving a shell-shocked Peter Ransom with a basket from his market run where Rose’s cloak had been. Juno didn’t miss the impressive bouquet of lipstick-red roses peeking their heads out from behind the cabbages.

“Juno, I can explain—”

“Get inside. You can explain while I help you unpack the groceries,” Juno snorted.

Juno herded him through the door, if not to hurry his way to the conversation, to shorten the amount of time Ransom had to sulk over the prospect of his romantic advances being rejected. As sweet as it was to see him trying and failing to blink the dejection out of his eyes like a schoolboy with a crush, something in Juno’s chest that had become all too tuggable as of late twinged at the sight of him upset at Juno’s hand.

“Here,” Ransom swallowed upon passing the basket to Juno.

Their hands brushed. As regular as the occasional touch between two people living in such close quarters had become, a warm jolt still shot through Juno’s hand, as if he had dipped it into a warm stream instead of brushed it against Ransom’s fingertips.

Maybe he wasn’t counting days anymore. That didn’t mean he couldn’t make the most of them knowing how few he might have left.

Juno let his hand linger against Ransom’s fingertips and his gaze linger on Ransom’s lips. Peter lingered right back, and for a moment, punctuated only by the faint humming of the world buzzing onward without them, Juno felt something click into place. He didn’t think that something would stay there forever, but for just a moment, he could believe he was completely safe in a place like this. Someday, he’d forget that he’d forgotten to count days and years would have passed, spent happy and warm and together and alive.

Juno blinked and that something fell out of place. The two of them were just Juno and Ransom once more, representatives of different worlds trying to find tiny debts to owe each other to excuse how much they wanted the other’s company.

“Thanks, Ransom,” Juno coughed once he dragged his head down from the clouds, placing the basket on the counter.

“Of course.”

“I think I’ve got something for you, too,” Juno started.

“Oh?”

“Do you want them in any kind of order, or—”

“Any order, dear,” Ransom swallowed, wincing as if the pet name had been a barb.

“Well, let’s start with the flower,” Juno began, pressing it into Ransom’s hands and smiling at the pleasant shade of red against the cream color of his shirt, “and this.”

Juno took Ransom’s empty hand in his and swept it up to his lips for a kiss, doing his best to emulate the softness of Duke Rose, who had worshipped at him like a sinner begging for his goddess’s benediction. Ransom merely blinked, a soft breath leaving his parted lips when Juno leaned up once more.

Juno didn’t let go of his hand. Ransom didn’t seem to mind.

“Juno, I am so sorry for being even remotely facetious with you today,” Ransom started, “I—”

“I was onto you from the start,” Juno chuckled, giving Ransom’s hand a squeeze. “You didn’t really think the disguise was that good, did you?”

“That’s not the point,” Ransom sniffed indignantly, though his manner cracked into a smile when Juno laughed again.

“You don’t have to court me or whatever just to get me to kiss your hand or whatever. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that was what the whole giving you what I get thing was about,” Juno added.

“I didn't mean to trick you into doing anything. In fact, I wouldn’t have even categorized the kiss as something, given that it wasn’t tangible—”

“Sure,” Juno snorted.

“Juno,” Ransom complained, “is it so terrible that I merely want to woo you under better circumstances than the those under which we met?”

“Woo me?” Juno repeated flatly.

“If that’s what you want—”

“You’re such an idiot,” Juno smiled.

“I just thought a lady such as yourself should deserve some form of courtship—”

“Ransom,” Juno stopped him, “you know you can just talk to me, right?”

Ransom sighed. From the manner in which he bit his lip, Juno nearly thought he meant to hold back a far worse emotion Juno hadn’t prepared for. However, the corners of his mouth turned up in a defiant smile he couldn’t seem to quell, even as he shook his head to try and cast it away.

“I thought it was far less romantic.”

“Ransom,” Juno groaned.

“You deserve—”

“To hell with what I deserve,” Juno chuckled. He squeezed Ransom’s hand a little tighter. “What about what I want?”

“I did mean to ask that.”

“Ransom.”

Ransom opened his mouth, then closed it once more.

“I know you’re not nearly as confident about the amount of time we have,” Ransom began slowly.

Juno shook his head to break him off.

“Screw time. Look, I—” Juno paused to swallow, “I know you made a hell of a promise. I know a lot’s on the line for you if you break that. And I know you’ve kinda got a motive to keep me around. I don’t think I’d mind giving you another reason.”

Ransom set the rose aside to take him by his other hand, fingers squeezing for dear life.

“Juno, I need you to promise me that you would say the same under kinder circumstances.”

“Yeah,” Juno swallowed. “Yeah, I think I would.”

“Then may I ask something else of you? A gift I hope you should want to return in kind,” Ransom prompted.

“Go for it,” Juno started to laugh, though his words melted into a soft, smile-tinged exhale when Ransom’s lips met his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL YEAH!! WHO COULD HAVE EVER SEEN IT COMING HUH
> 
> thank you all so much for reading!! make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!!
> 
> check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	4. The Green Knight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL YEAH!!
> 
> content warnings for food, minor couple arguments, one or two very vaguely worded sex jokes

Juno wasn’t entirely sure what was making the days pass so quickly, but he was fairly sure Peter Ransom had something to do with it. Nothing made time fly by like wanting it to last forever, after all.

“Ransom—” Juno would break off to shake his head morning after morning, grabbing Ransom by the wrist before he could make some terrible cooking mistake or another, “if you’re not confident with two hands, you shouldn’t try to crack an egg with one.”

Ransom made his complaints clear by huffing into Juno’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to the crook of his neck, as if he could earn forgiveness in affection-stained groveling. However, with a pleasant residual tiredness hanging on the both of them, Ransom was easily distracted. Rather than continuing his kiss-based penance, he tugged Juno closer by the waist and hummed into his shoulder, voice warm and soft and ragged with sleep.

“Sap,” Juno accused, earning nothing but a friendly laugh in return.

“You torment me, my love,” Ransom yawned. “I do nothing but worship you and yet you must return my affections with the utmost cruelty.”

“Shut up,” Juno huffed.

“Never, dear,” Ransom punctuated with a kiss to his cheek.

“Are you just gonna cuddle with me until I crack the egg for you?” Juno snorted after the seconds waiting for a hand to depart from his waist turned into nearly a minute. “If you need help, you can just ask, you know.”

“Love, my choice to cherish you is in no way connected to my perceived lack of kitchen skills,” Ransom returned, a little too much ice in his voice for Juno not to laugh.

“Sure it is,” Juno shook his head. “I guess I’ll just finish the cooking for you and take all the credit myself then.”

“No,” Ransom replied a little too quickly, “I don’t think that’ll be necessary at all.”

All Juno could do was shake his head and laugh.

“It’s just—”

“Perhaps I’m not emotionally prepared to part from you,” Ransom joked, pulling Juno closer, as if to prove his point. “It would be a terrible crime to rid myself of your presence when you’re right here and I’m so very tired and you’re so very warm.”

“Just—” Juno broke off for a snort, “just tell me when you’re emotionally prepared to crack this egg, alright?”

“Of course,” Ransom beamed, pressing a kiss to Juno’s neck once more.

Maybe Juno didn’t know for certain that the deadline he had been marching towards for the last year sat waiting, jaws gaping, at the end of the evening, but he knew for certain it felt as if it had been far too many days and hardly enough at the same time. He didn’t doubt Ransom had some similar idea, though he never brought it up.

If Juno suspected the weight of the date, Ransom’s silent clinginess all but confirmed it. He might not have mentioned anything in regards to that deadline that kept a few extra cabbages on the counter and far too many rings of iron fencing in the yard, but the silent pity he had been pushing aside with a smile and a foolish promise for the last few weeks seeped from the way he called Juno back to their bed time and time again that morning and clung to him when Juno finally managed to drag him to the kitchen. If it was not obvious by then, his insistence on being at Juno’s side through every lock they checked and enchantment they doubled and window they barred might as well have been a spoken confession.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter how much Ransom insisted on holding Juno on his chest while they pretended to read their respective books in the lazy afternoon light from the windows too high to be barred. The cold and hazy serpent that snaked around the green knight’s form had slithered its way between them, no matter how tight Ransom clung to him or for how long.

The sun was already singing its own dirge in the west sky when the creeping discomfort that had been writhing in Juno’s chest all day finally squirmed enough to irk the serpent into striking.

“Dammit,” Juno heard himself huff in time with the clanking of a spoon, fallen from where he had been trying and failing to do the dishes. Maybe the reaction was a little much for something simple, but whatever had been rising in his chest since Ransom asked him if he would be most comfortable locking the tower up like a fortress didn’t seem to care what shape the last straw took.

“Love—” Ransom started, tossing his drying towel aside.

“It’s fine,” Juno bit.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

“It’s fine,” Juno repeated, voice icy.

Ransom swallowed, sharp eyes following helplessly as Juno finished washing the spoon and set it aside. He did not touch it when it came to rest on the towel beside him, nor did he move in any other way, the damned gaze still resting on Juno, as if standing there and looking hurt could do anything to change the deadline waiting at the end of the evening.

“Juno,” he started, so softly that Juno felt the ire in his jaw and brow slacken, “is this about tonight?”

Juno shook his head.

“Just dropped a spoon and overreacted.”

“Love,” Ransom stopped him with a hand on his cheek before he could turn away.

Maybe if Juno had been a little smarter, he would have shaken Ransom’s hand off. That way, he wouldn’t have to come face to face with how Ransom’s usual showman’s smile had been replaced with something raw, sweet and soft and pitiful and sorry in a way Juno didn’t want to have to think about. However, between the gentle warmth of Ransom’s fingertips and the cold boring into his chest, all he could do was lay his own hand atop Peter’s and squeeze.

“I’m just—” Juno swallowed, “I know you’ve promised not to let anything happen to me, and from someone like you, promises don’t come cheap. I just don’t know how the hell you’re gonna be able to do something like that.”

“We have our workarounds planned already,” Ransom returned firmly.

“And what if it doesn’t work?” Juno huffed. “I mean—God, this all was so stupid. I don’t know why the hell I ever let myself get close to you like this. It wasn’t fair to me to get my hopes up, and it sure as hell wasn’t fair to you.”

“Juno, I’ve sworn on my life, my honesty, the roof over our heads,” Ransom began, closing the thousand miles between them with another step forward, “I might as well swear on my name too.”

“Ransom, you don’t have to do—”

“Peter Nureyev,” he finished before Juno could get out another word.

Juno had never seen a name given or taken in his life, but from the gravity of the gesture, he expected something within him to burn or break or shatter. However, the kitchen remained quiet, only the faint fizzing of the dying soap suds in the sink making any noise. Nureyev squeezed his hand a little tighter, eyes pressed shut in the moment it took for him to decide whether or not he regretted his decision.

“Peter Nureyev,” Juno finally heard himself repeat. “I don’t want your name, honey.”

“It’s the most valuable thing I can swear on,” Nureyev swallowed, dark eyes now open and soft and fixed on Juno’s as if looking upon a relic in contemplative prayer. “It is, perhaps, all I could give you that would make you believe me when I say you will not die tonight, my love.”

“How mad would you be if I gave it back?”

Nureyev’s mouth twitched into the ghost of a smile.

“Oh, Juno,” he sighed, warm and affectionate, “must you be so crass while I’m trying to give you a gift?”

“What?” Juno huffed. “It feels weird to have this kinda power. It’s not right.”

“Just for tonight, then,” Nureyev pressed. “You can at least hold me to my promise until any perceived danger has passed. As little as I think the green knight will actually do you any harm, my intention lies in keeping you at ease, be it physically or mentally.”

“As long as I can give it back first thing tomorrow,” Juno conceded.

“Of course, dear.”

“Can I still—y’know—call you it after everything?” Juno asked after a moment’s pause.

“I suppose so,” Nureyev considered. “Perhaps it wouldn’t have the same weight, but I certainly wouldn’t mind its use, especially not from you.”

“Great. And—I mean, you found out mine by rooting through my pockets—”

Nureyev’s feigned offense was enough to coax a smile into blooming on Juno’s lips.

“I was merely trying to find out which stranger I had welcomed into my home,” Nureyev huffed. “Wouldn’t you do the same?”

“I dunno, I don’t exactly let in any waterlogged traveler off the street,” Juno snorted.

“You are far from just any waterlogged traveler,” Nureyev teased. “You’re a very handsome waterlogged traveler.”

“Shut up. I looked like a drowned rat and we both know it,” Juno rolled his eyes.

“Whatever you say, my love,” Nureyev smiled, his hand squeezing Juno’s so he could keep a bit of contact, even if he trailed back to drying the dishes as if nothing had happened.

As much as there was a certain wrongness in possessing such a powerful thing, Juno had to admit that Nureyev’s name, nestled warmly in a corner of his chest, made for good company against the creeping cold of his nerves. Nureyev was right to think it would help with coaxing him towards calm, though if not for the promise that he’d be rid of the thing by morning, Juno was all but certain his mental state would be decidedly worse.

The normalcy, perhaps, was Nureyev’s kindest gift. As the hand on the clock behind them inched closer and closer to the time Juno did not know and did not care to find out, Nureyev kept his touches casual, as if no deadline were approaching at all. He squeezed Juno’s hand on occasion, sometimes dragging it over to support a plate while he dried it, unwilling to give up the contact even for the chores he still had to finish.

Juno had spent a lot of time thinking about how it all might end, or if not, where he’d be when it didn’t. He hadn’t ever considered that he’d be laughing at his partner for refusing to stop holding his hand long enough to dry one bowl.

That laugh wilted on his tongue the second the clock struck the hour behind them, each sound rolling out into the inky, candle stained darkness of boarded up evening as Nureyev froze, swallowing.

“Nureyev,” Juno started slowly, “you can’t just look like you’re gonna be sick and not tell me what’s happening.”

Nureyev didn’t reply, though his hand snaked away from Juno’s and into his pocket as he turned and began to back away.

“Nureyev, wait—”

Nureyev didn’t stop until he had put several more feet between them.

“Juno, I’m afraid to say that a year ago on this hour, I made a promise as well,” he swallowed.

Juno felt his jaw go slack.

“You bastard—”

Nureyev shook his head.

“I haven’t been able to tell you. I put that stipulation on myself. You would not see nor hear of the green knight until it was time for his return, after all,” Nureyev continued, squeezing his eyes shut against the faint green glow that began to haunt his outline, dulling every warm candle that had so recently tinted the room in domestic light.

Juno didn’t know where his sword was, but for just a moment, his hand itched for it, just to have something he knew could protect him from the figure all those miles away, whose familiar face had morphed into the one haunting him for the last year.

“Get the hell away from me,” Juno started to snarl, though anything else he tried to bite shattered the moment Rex Glass’s face melted back into Nureyev’s, complete with the wide, soft eyes he cursed himself for having fallen in love with.

“Juno—”

“If all of this was a goddamn lie, I’ll—” Juno broke off the second Nureyev turned and made his way towards the other end of the counter, “where the hell are you going?”

“Juno, when I made our second game of turnabout, I was careful with my wording for a reason,” Nureyev began to explain, picking up one of the cabbages from the counter. “I specified that anything I received at the market would be yours, correct?”

“Yeah, but—”

Nureyev gestured to the cabbage.

“As of several seconds ago, this head of cabbage was yours. I hope you don’t mind my taking it.”

Juno blinked.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I never specifically said I would behead you,” Nureyev tested a smile. “Of course, if it had been one of your more distasteful colleagues who had stepped up to my challenge, I might have changed my mind, but seeing as you were pressured into it, I made sure to keep my wording vague. A head can account for many things, many of which I doubted you would miss. Flowers, livestock, pieces of branches, a specific act of consensual intimacy, cabbages, certain rock formations—”

“Nureyev,” Juno huffed, stopping him.

“Yes?”

“You’re telling me I walked into a goddamn trap three weeks ago?”

“I took you in sincerely,” Nureyev assured him. “I only realized the coincidence when I found your name. Frankly, I would have broken the rules of the challenge and revealed myself in my amusement at that had you not been recovering. Given that I like my head the way it is, I’m rather glad you took your time.”

“So let me get this straight,” Juno began, “you didn’t tell me any of this so you wouldn’t break the rules of the game—”

“And possibly die,” Nureyev added.

“And possibly die,” Juno repeated, pressing on. “And so you just made other rules around it so you wouldn’t have to kill me?”

“Well, I was careful with my wording from the beginning,” Nureyev admitted, trying and failing to swallow a flush of his cheeks as he continued on, seeming to find his shoe incredibly interesting to look at. “I did find you rather attractive, even before I knew you personally.”

“What the hell does that have to—”

The moment Juno’s words fell away, Nureyev broke into a laugh, the hazy green glow shattering around him as he hid his face behind a hand.

“Juno, my dear, I sincerely apologize—”

Juno closed the thousand miles between them to take Nureyev by both hands and squeeze them, partially to assure him that the urge to flee out one of the boarded windows had passed and partially to get a good look at the sweet embarrassment drawing his lips tight and forcing back his laugh.

“Nureyev,” Juno started evenly, “you’re such an idiot.”

“I am incredibly aware—”

“And I love you,” Juno finished before anything else could pass Nureyev’s lips.

“I never expected this damned game to be so complicated,” Nureyev shook his head. “I just thought I’d have the chance to scare a handful of the royal parasites and an opportunity to scare one of them twice over. I never wanted you to go through anything like this on my account. I think if it made you feel any better at all, my name was a fair trade.”

“Nureyev,” Juno began firmly, “I think you should take it back now. It’s not that I don’t want it—I mean, I don’t, but that’s not the point—I just don’t think it’s fair to you to hang onto it, especially if I don’t really need you to protect me from anything. I trust you not to cut my head off or steal anything more important than a cabbage or—you know—without asking first.”

“Oh?”

“Shut up,” Juno snorted. “Just--I dunno if I have to say anything fancy, but I, Juno Steel, formally give you your name back. Or whatever.”

Once more, nothing seemed to change from his human view of things, though Nureyev stood a little straighter the moment the words passed his lips.

“Thank you,” he nodded, his exhale filling the subsequent silence. “Juno, I understand if you never wish to see my face again. If you want to leave this place this very instant, I’ll help you pack—if you want my assistance, that is.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Juno teased, though his smirk melted into sincerity when he found himself met with wide eyes. “You ended up in a shitty situation and couldn’t come clean. I get it. It happens. There’s a reason I don’t have one of my eyes. I think—”

Juno broke off to shake his head, trying not to think about the abject terror tugging at the sleeve of Nureyev’s expression.

“I’m a little shaken now. I mean, I didn’t expect this all to be fine,” Juno pressed on. “I also think this is gonna be really funny in a couple years.”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow.

“Years?”

“I mean, if that’s not really something you were looking at—”

Nureyev’s expression softened instantly, though Juno didn’t get much of a chance to see it before Nureyev swept him into a hug, hoisting him off the ground and spinning him for as long as his adrenaline-hardened muscles would allow. If the world was still spinning when Nureyev set him down, Juno didn’t notice, for something bright and soft and sweet in Nureyev’s eyes made it impossible to care about anything else.

“My dear, I don’t think I would mind spending years with you at all,” Nureyev beamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL YEAH I LOVE LOVE!!!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill take your head one way or another
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!

**Author's Note:**

> uh oh sisters
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill come for your head in one year's time
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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